Perfectly Normal
by Ina-chan
Summary: COMPLETED. Every mother's child is born special. But if your child is a genius, what is considered 'perfectly normal' rests on a very thin line.
1. In which a new young mother struggles

DISCLAIMER: F4 and all its characters belong to Marvel. No money is made from this. This is done all for the greater glory of Reedness! .

December 5, 2007  
**Perfectly Normal  
**_**Chapter One: In which a new young mother struggles with apparent normality  
**_By Ina-chan

**"From the moment he is born, a child is always perfect to every mother no matter the circumstance."**

At least that was what Mother always told me. And at least that was what I always believed. So when I, Evelyn Richards, held my firstborn and only child for the first time… why was it that I felt nothing else but on overwhelming sense of inexplicable guilt. For the longest time, I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why.

My baby. My little boy was perfect in every way. From his perfect ten little fingers to his perfect ten little toes. When I was a child, I remembered silently thinking when my newborn cousins and when my little brother were born… how my mother and aunts cooed and fussed at how beautiful they were. But in reality, they were really these bald ugly wrinkled little alien-looking pink things that screamed at the top of their lungs.

My Reed was nothing like that.

Reed had thick silken tufts of dark hair and his nose already hinted the dignified aquiline features that nearly all the men in his father's family possessed. In fact, on Reed's first Christmas, one of the rare times where all the Richards men gathered in one room willingly (more or less)… with Dad playing with his new grandson on his knee and Nate arguing over whatever activist Teddy was involved with at the moment, it was as if seeing a single person at different stages of his life all at once.

My baby had the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. I knew that they would most likely darken into Nate's warm whiskey eyes when he grew older, but there was something in Reed's eyes that caught your attention. People often stopped, do a double take, and gave my beautiful boy a second look. There was just something fascinating with how my baby seemed to watch the world around him with almost adult-like wonder… as if he kept a secret that nobody else knew.

Unlike the babies I've gotten accustomed to in my youth, my little boy rarely cried. Of course, he used cry out of discomfort and hunger as all babies did, but he never wailed or fussed or screamed. Even that soon came to a minimum when we fell into a familiar routine.

My little boy was never a problem baby. In every sense, he was perfect. He was beautiful, healthy, and even made an effort of keeping the pains of being a new mother relatively easy. That was why I couldn't help feeling this overwhelming sense of utmost guilt. Instead of counting my blessings, my thoughts always went back to the incomprehensible feeling that something was very wrong. At least… something was wrong with me for feeling this way.

I tried to tell Nate once. About how I felt, that is. But Nate, as sweet and loving as my husband was and despite having the intelligence to mathematically split an atom in his head while reciting Shakespeare, could be thoughtlessly obtuse when it came to things that didn't need anything else other brain function than using common sense. He simply dismissed my fears to normal anxieties that all new mothers have.

So I forced myself to think nothing of it. Despite Nate's momentary lapses of idiocy (which I often blamed to the nature of him being male), he was still, after all, one of the leading intellectuals of our generation. The world holds Nathaniel Richards' opinion with high regard, so why couldn't I?

Teddy was more sympathetic. Theodore Richards…my wonderful best friend turned brother-in-law. I still wonder sometimes why I fell for Nate. Teddy and I were a lot closer to each other's ages and definitely had a lot more common. Then again, Teddy, with his big heart, his intellectual writing, his book tours, his philanthropic causes, his activist movements, his eccentricities, and his cyclic rollercoaster episodes between mania and depression was as dependable as an igloo in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

Yet still… that uncomfortable nagging feeling continued to gnaw at the edge of my mind as I watched Reed quickly grow from infancy to childhood. I devoured every book I could get my hand on until Nate forbade me to read anymore (he claimed that it just fed my paranoia). Nonetheless, as each stage of my child's development progressed, it was starting to become difficult to ignore the persistent nagging from the back of my mind.

Reed was still struggling to sit up and crawl at an age when I should be up my wits end in trying to keep up with him. During family gatherings, Reed tended to shrink away from the festivities and appeared content to play by himself, treating people around him as one treats furniture. Worst of all was when Reed reached the age when children normally babbled childish sentences. My son simply continued to answer with silent inquiring looks, and I noticed that even that was starting to become a rarity.

**"He'll talk when he's good and ready."**

Dad reassured me with a hearty chuckle. With the exception of Teddy (of course, Teddy's eccentricities has made him an exception to most things), it appeared that being the strong and silent type was also a Richards Family trait. It seemed rather ironic that I somewhat found reassurances from Dad more comforting than my own husband's… even though essentially they were both saying the same thing.

Like his son, Maj. John Richards was a decorated man of his right. He enlisted serve our country two weeks short of his twentieth birthday, became a paratrooper and was part of the 101st Airborne Division that historic day in Normandy two decades ago, left the army after the war to become founder of the Richards family business empire essentially with nothing but optimism and the clothes of his back, and kept that same youthful optimistic attitude despite watching his wife waste away from cancer and die in his arms. There was no question that Dad was the rock of the family. I've grown to love and respect him as much as I love and respect my own father. But this time even Dad's reassuring words couldn't quiet the nagging voice in the back of my mind.

**"There is no stronger bond than that of a mother and a child."**

Yet, another one of Mother's wise sayings that I always believed... Or at least I did until I grew up. I stopped believing in a lot of things. I even secretly stopped believing in God. Traumatizing events in one's childhood can do that… loss of innocence and all that jazz. Like realizing one day that the woman I adored as a child was nothing more than a manipulative whore who drank herself stupid rather than face her problems with my father… and later on with her second husband… as well as the anonymous boy-toy of the month that she hid in the closet even long before her first husband made her an unfashionable divorcee, and her second a widow.

Say one thing, do another… that was how I remembered Mother. There was no doubt that I resented her for breaking up our family because of her selfishness. I resented her for hurting Daddy. Yet, as much as I hated her, she did shape me into what I am today. And she strongly instilled in me the determination to be her complete opposite when I had children of my own.

**"You'll know what its like once you become a parent yourself."**

That one was Mother's favourite. She screamed it every chance she got, to make Joe or myself, feel guilty over something when we didn't do what she wanted. How dare us insolent ungrateful brats victimize poor little her. It was effective too. Until now, I still couldn't stop feeling guilty over everything I did. It didn't matter what it was, I just felt guilty.

Then again, it was really my fault. I was the one who slammed the door on her face when I was fourteen. When I decided to turn around and walk away with Joe in tow, hopped into Daddy's car and vowed to never see her again. Looking back and knowing what I know now… I've started to think that perhaps, her words were more like a curse than a warning.

When Reed was born, I always thought that some instinctive light bulb would turn on and the mothering insight and skills passed on from mother to child and innately locked somewhere inside me would open up like a great revelation. But none of that happened. When Reed was born, when Reed started crawling, when Reed turned two… that warm fuzzy feeling that those baby formula and diaper commercials capitalized to sell their products never materialized. I've been a mother for two years, and I still didn't know what the hell I was doing.

It didn't help that Reed wasn't doing any of the things the books said he was supposed to be doing either…

He was two years old, and he was yet to utter his first word. Not even one little made up baby-speak babble. I never heard him laugh or even recall the last time I saw him smile. He has never turned to look at me whenever I called his name. My hugs and cuddles were often met with his little body struggling and squirming away from my grasp.

An awful thought often crossed my mind. That this was Mother's prophetic guilt-ridden screams coming to fruition. That this was some kind of divine karmic punishment for how I treated Mother.

**"There might be something wrong with his hearing. Maybe we should get Edwin's opinion."**

You had no idea how I felt when Nate suggested that one evening. I suppose Reed's unusual behaviour was finally getting through Nate's thick head. Reed would often fall into these trancelike lapses, like he was concentrating his attention on something very intently. That evening, Reed had an intense fascination on the patterns of shadows on the family room's walls from the light of the crackling fireplace. The Commies could drop a bomb in the room and not even that would prevent my little boy from peeling his attention from the shapes on the walls. It was rather unnerving.

**"But I'm sure he'll say it's just a regular case of Reed being a late bloomer."**

Nate quickly added more cheerfully, possibly from seeing what he perceived as anxiety crossing on my features.

Of course, the truth was it was really more to do with him not wanting to accept that there was possibly something wrong with our perfect son than upsetting me. Nate had already been upsetting me more and more recently since Reed was born… and he never really noticed. Mind you, Nate was an excellent problem solver. Present him with a problem and he will instantly give you a hundred different solutions. He got that from Dad.

But unlike Dad, Nate doesn't do very well with emotional confrontations. He prefers to utilize the "withdraw and avoid" method when it comes to problems that talk back to him. Not that it really mattered. It didn't. Not really. At least it didn't matter to me anymore.

I was too busy trying to drive away my feelings of guilt… guilt for allowing relief to well up inside me at the expense of my son's well being. It was the first time Nate finally took my concerns seriously. I'm such an awful person! Most mothers would be behind themselves with anxiety and worry whenever her child was brought to the doctor's office. But sitting in Edwin Jenkins' waiting room only gives me a sense of relief and a tiny ray of hope.

It was ironic how quickly and easily that tiny hope could be crushed.

**"Evie, Reed's hearing is perfectly normal."**

Perfect. Normal. Just as expected.

Nate was so sure of the results that he didn't even bother to come with us. Nate was rarely wrong anyway. With the exception of Dad, and a few of his trusted friends and colleagues, there were only a handful of people in the face of the Earth who would be successful in swaying Nate's opinions. And a fewer still who even bothered challenging Nate's stubbornness in the first place.

Unfortunately, I belong to the normal population group who found that challenging Nate on matters that you could not back up with scientific proof was usually more trouble than it's worth. Fortunately, Edwin Jenkins was one of the former. Nate valued Ed's advice as if he was Moses listening to God's voice from the burning bush. Not only was Ed a close childhood friend, Ed's father took care of the Richards brothers from the moment they popped unto the Earth. Now, Edwin took over his father's task of looking after my son.

I've grown fond of Ed since I discovered that he was one of the privileged few who had the ability to stand up against Nate's overbearing… Nate-ness. I also appreciated the silent sympathy he gave me each time I appeared with Reed in tow and my husband nary in sight.

Then again, this visit, save for Nate's temporary admission that there might be something amiss with our child, was just as expected. Me coming in, voicing out concerns about Reed not meeting what was expected for him to do based on the books, Ed listening patiently before giving a reassuring smile and launching with his lecture about how children develop in their own pace. Then declaring that Reed, as usual, was perfectly normal.

Only Ed wasn't smiling after he patiently listened to what bothered me about Reed this time. He wasn't smiling when he said that Reed was perfectly normal either.

**"But…"**

He also never added "But" right after stating Reed was perfectly normal.

**"I think it's a good idea for Jim Grieves to have a look at him too for an expert opinion. He owes me a favour so he'll probably see you this very afternoon as soon as make the phone call. You better give Nate a call as well."**

And Ed never used that tone either. That tone that the doctors in General Hospital would use just before they made a grim announcement to the family.

**"Be careful what you wish for."**

A stupid saying that I never paid any attention to. Until now… Isn't this completely ironic? After hoping and wishing for an explanation on why I was convinced that there was something wrong with my son despite what everyone says… and when my doubts were suddenly justified…

For the first time, I was really afraid.

**"Why does Reed need an expert opinion? Didn't you say that his hearing was perfectly normal?"**

**"Evie, Jim's not an audiologist. He's a neuropsychologist, specializing on developmental disorders."**

**"What?"**

**"I'm sorry, Evie. All this time, you instinctively knew and none of us listened. But you might have been right all along."**

It was one thing to know that you were right all along… it was another when the implications behind knowing that you were right all along finally hit you. And you silently ask yourself and you silently plead with God even though you haven't prayed since you were ten years old after loosing faith when he didn't answer your prayers about making your mother stop drinking and keeping your family together.

**"Ed… what's wrong with Reed?"**

**"You have to understand, Evie, that this is just speculation. Jim would have a better…"**

**"Edwin, tell me what it is!"**

Dear God in heaven, was it too late to go back? I promise to turn away from the vanity of self-righteousness. I promise to partake in the virtue of your humility. I promise to be content with all the blessings you have granted me. I promise to undertake the journey of forgiveness so that Mother could finally rest in peace. I promise to go to Church every single Sunday if you would grant one simple prayer.

**"Reed may have Autism."**

Please let me go back to that moment when my beautiful little boy was just simply 'perfectly normal'?

* * *

Author's squawk: 

There were two reasons to why I wanted to do this fic:

1. I've been playing with this idea for the longest time, since I read "Marvel Knights 1234". Mind you, everyone was being manipulated by Dr. Doom's machine, thus the reason why everyone thought what they thought and behaved how they behaved. But Sue's annoyed analysis that her husband might actually have Asperger's Syndrome to explain his anti-social behaviour stayed in my mind and fascinated me a bit. Well, famous real-life geniuses were believed to exhibit Asperger's Syndrome symptom like Albert Einstein & Isaac Newton.

2. While Byrne mentioned her in his 80's run and Aguirre-Sacasa briefly showed her in a few panels in "Marvel Knights 4", Evelyn Richards remains a blank slate in the Marvel Universe. And she's also quite sparse in the fanficdom. I wanted an Evelyn Richards story, dammit! Seeing how Nate treats his own son… er children… (dunno what happened to the kid Cassandra bore him… plus and other illegitimate children he may have spawned as he travelled through parallel universes) and given the crappy behaviour Reed obviously learned from his father, Evelyn must have had a handful dealing with Nathaniel's dickery. More will follow later.

Anywayz, the setting in this fic will follow the darker path of what "Marvel Knights 4" established. I particularly loved the Reed's backstory with his grandfather. John Richards sounds like a really interesting character. I'm sorta skirting around the whole "Communist Registration Act" backstory re: Reed's Uncle Ted (that was highlighted in Civil War) back in the 50's, but it was intentionally vague in the comic book chronology re: Reed's memories about his Uncle's involvement in the hearings so we could be looking at Reed's "hearsay" memories. Then again, it's not really central in this story so that doesn't matter.

Oh yes… the setting of this fic is in the 1960's. Like the Marvel Universe, I'll try to keep pop cultural references vague, but I want to at least reflect some of the attitudes during the era for the sake of the story. This is actually my struggle. How to authentically portray 60's attitudes towards autism and mental health, that is. So if anyone sees any inconsistencies, please feel free to let me know.

Ja!  
Ina-chan


	2. In which a sliver of light

DISCLAIMER: F4 and all its characters belong to Marvel. No money is made from this. This is done all for the greater glory of Reedness! .

December 17, 2007

**Perfectly Normal  
**_**Chapter Two: In which a sliver of light at the end of a tunnel makes itself known  
**_By Ina-chan

To be quite honest, I wasn't really sure how to react when Ed first suggested the possibility that my son could have autism. It was the first time I even heard the word. I only assumed based on his expression, his tone, and his recommendation for Reed to be seen by an expert that my son's condition was very serious.

It was only after I saw the unreadable expression on Nate's face when Jim Grieves reluctantly confirmed the possibility of Ed's suspicions that it finally hit me. Jim Grieves seemed overly cautious about giving his diagnosis, emphasizing that Reed's symptoms were "atypical" of what we know so far about "classic" symptoms of autism. It didn't necessarily mean that Reed won't show it in the future either. Only one thing was clear… from that moment on, no one was going to utter the words "perfectly normal" to describe my little boy ever again.

I didn't understand until much later why Jim Grieves was so reluctant to diagnose my baby. I didn't know that having "autism" attached to your identity would make other people assume that your name was synonymous with other… words, some of those words painful to hear, most of them degrading.

When I asked Jim Grieves about what we could do and about a cure… my heart sank when he simply recommended a private institution just outside of Central City. It was some kind of special home for "disturbed children" to be exact. Could you imagine? My baby, growing up in a place like that! I was so upset at Jim Grieves' suggestion that I demanded Ed to send us to someone else fro a second opinion.

Ed, bless his soul, understood what I was going through. He indulged me, despite his own concerns about how the ordeal of going through the painful process again was going to affect us. We had a second opinion… a third… even a fourth… each specialist giving a more pessimistic prognosis than the next. On hindsight, it was clever of Ed to send us to Jim Grieves first, who definitely proved why he was considered an expert in his field. Two of our other opinions diagnosed Reed with "childhood schizophrenia" without any hesitation. One of them even helpfully offered to arrange Reed's admission to a local asylum on the spot.

I felt myself slowly sink deeper and deeper into this pit of despair to the point that not even Teddy's attempts to lift my spirits mattered. In a moment of weakness, I even considered Mother's solution to all her problems. In the end, it was Reed who saved me from that fate. I knew from my own childhood experience that drinking away my sorrows to blissful forgetfulness was not going to help my own child in any way. Regardless of any doubts I had about my mothering skills, I simply reminded myself that Reed was all that mattered now. Thus, swallowing my fears and my pride, I visited that facility that Jim Grieves recommended to me.

"**Expanding Borders Home for Children with Special Needs"**

It had a rather wonderful ring to its name, didn't it? Imagine a place to expand borders and give hope for families of children with special needs. It was a beautiful facility. I imagine much better than the government sponsored institutions that I also researched about. It was a private estate in a nice suburban neighbourhood. There were spacious gardens, special classrooms with individualized classes, and caring staff who attended to the children's needs. It was reminiscent of those English boarding schools that I used to read about those require reading classic literature books in school. I was sure that it was a hundred times more expensive than the government sponsored institutions, but money was never really an issue with us as long as it was going to help my son.

Nate shared my opinion about the idea of sending our child away. He was completely against it, yet at the same time, our son's condition was something not even his genius could solve. I saw how desperately he wanted to take charge and make things all right. That was Nate's way. Take charge, take control, solve the problem, and life goes on. I knew it was killing him to realize that he could only to helplessly come to terms that this was something that was beyond his control.

Logic was telling us that this was what was best for Reed. These people were the experts and they knew how to help them. My heart argued differently. Putting Reed in that private sheltered environment was pretty much an admission that the only way he could thrive in this world was to live within those secluded borders. As beautiful as that facility was and as much as I hated to say it, that place in essence was really nothing more but a glorified prison.

However, it wasn't until I saw the children who lived there that I finally knew that this wasn't the place for my son. Mind you, the children looked well cared for and perhaps most of them even looked happy and content. Even so, I couldn't ignore the sight of some of those children in those little yellow helmets, whom I assumed were the severe cases. How they stared blankly in space in an a medication-induced stupor while strapped on a wheelchair (for safety, the staff said, to keep them from banging their heads against the wall or hitting and biting the other kids when they have their 'episodes') or how they rocked on their little bodies and posed in odd uncomfortable positions (they find it comforting, the staff explained, as to why they find comfort doing that, nobody could really answer my question).

Like most of the children there, Reed didn't talk. And yes, Reed would also prefer to live in that private little world inside his head. But unlike those children, my baby never showed any 'self-harm' behaviour or tried to hit people. He didn't even indulge in those repetitive motions and mannerisms that autistic children were commonly known for (which was one of the reasons why Jim Grieves was cautious about diagnosing my baby).

But, my greatest concern was the medications. The medications they give to help control the children's harmful behaviour. They were the same medicine they give to crazy people who have their brains literally turned into mush by these things so they wouldn't hear voices or see things that aren't there or to keep them from pushing people off subway platforms. They were the same medicine that has side effects strong enough to turn a man four times my son's size into a walking zombie.

And those children… those poor children who were labelled as "severe cases"! Did they expect them to live like that for the rest of their young lives for their protection? Strapped to a chair, too sedated to be aware of what's going on around them, their tiny arms shaking with uncontrollable tremors, and their little legs too stiff to walk…

I suppose for those children the medications were the lesser evil. But Reed didn't have any of those behaviours so I saw no need for him to be medicated… or be exposed to that environment, no matter how nicely packaged it looked. I'd rather die than condemn my son to live like that for the rest of his natural life. Maybe my husband's stubbornness and my father-in-laws extreme optimism were just rubbing off on me. But something was telling me that despite what others say about my son's limitations, Reed was destined to do greater things in this world than be a mental health institution statistic. I would do everything I could to help him overcome those limits.

Even if everyone outside our family that believe that all my efforts would probably be in vain anyway…

"Children with autism are also likely to have mental retardation and learning disabilities."

That was what Jim Grieves said about my son…

Sons were expected to follow their father's footsteps. Dad, despite his liberal views, was not an exception to tradition. When they were younger, both Richards boys were expected to take over the booming Richards Enterprise in the future. Teddy, being the elder, was the one most likely to take the role.

Of course, Teddy had other ideas about his future. He was a dreamer and chose to dance to the beat of his own drum. The week after he turned eighteen, Teddy packed his bags in a car with his friends for a long road trip towards Wharton in Penn. He never got there. Dad just woke up to a phone call one morning from Teddy in Quebec City, to reassure his family that he was all right and decided to take the year off travelling to see the world instead of going to business school.

Needless to say, all of hell broke loose. But there really wasn't anything anyone could do when it came to Teddy. Nate, in turn, took the role of the dutiful son. Then again, between the two brothers, Nate was really the more logical choice to take over the reins. Nate's scientific genius was coupled with a brilliant business sense. He led the company towards a new direction, applying his love for science and discovery.

I suppose for someone 'gifted' like Nate, the idea that his son would grow up with an IQ no higher than a three-year-old was a bigger blow than he'd like to admit. More so than the fact that Reed would just as unlikely to follow his father's footsteps. True to his nature, Nate "avoided and withdrew", and dedicated more and more of his time with work. Nate also never said it aloud but I knew.

I knew that he was blaming me for this happening.

"**Autism was caused by maternal coldness toward their children…****1****"**

Maternal coldness. How was that for karmic irony? When I was younger, I blamed my mother for a lot of things that happened in my life. I always believed those were accusations well deserved. In a way, I still do. My mother was a selfish, cold-hearted bitch who tore our family apart. Seeing me now, she must be laughing her ass off in hell.

I didn't deserve this. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, my world revolved around my baby. I vowed never to become my mother. I followed everything the doctors told me to do to ensure my baby's health. I bluntly refused Nate's suggestion with hiring a nanny because I wanted to be the one who got up at night to feed and comfort him. I wanted to be the one who took him to see his paediatrician, made sure that he had his shots on time. Dammit! I was the only one who insisted that there was something wrong when nobody listened!

How dare they! Just because they have a piece of paper stating that they went through several years of schooling to earn a title at the end of their name! Who gave them the right to point the blame on me!

Did they know that everyone simply patted my shoulder reassuringly and told me that I was just being paranoid instead of really listening to my fears? Did they know how much it hurt each time my son pushed me away whenever I tried to hold him in my arms? Did they know how agonizing it felt wondering what it was that I was doing wrong each time my child ignored me when I called his name? Did they know how it felt to wish seeing a smile or hearing a laugh that never came each time you see his face? Did they know how it felt like to look at your two-year-old child's face, who wouldn't look up to even meet your eyes? Did they know what it was like to wake up each morning, knowing what I know now, wondering every single day of my life ever since my son was born, would things have been different if I did something differently?

Did they know how much it hurt to overhear what people say about my baby behind our backs?

"**Did you hear about the Richards boy? I heard from the grapevine that Evelyn Richards visited that retard home a while back." **

"**Really? You don't say!" **

"**Ofelia, that's not the proper name…"**

"**Oh pooh! 'Home for children with special needs' is just a pretty way of saying dumping ground for emotionally disturbed, crazy and retarded children. Facts are facts, my dear." **

"**The poor darlings! Evelyn and Nathaniel are such wonderful people too."**

"**I always wondered why the poor child was always hidden away."**

"**Well, as long as they keep him far away from my Maryanne. I don't want my little girl catching what their retarded boy has." **

Our so-called friends and their foolish little children, especially that busy body harlot, Ofelia Waechter. Her 'little girl' was practically a young woman. A blonde pretty sixteen-year-old, who stubbornly insisted on continuing her voice lessons from me even after I announced my retirement in order to dedicate more time with my son. I admit that no one twisted my arm on that decision. Despite all the changes I had go through since Nate entered my life, music was my first love and passion.

Long before I married Nate and before I even met Teddy, I was privileged to spend an amount of my misspent youth as a substitute pianist for the Columbia Symphony while working on my music doctorate. I even played for the New York Philharmonic once.

I know. Professional musician. A "useless stupid impractical line of work" as Mother put it. Despite being physically absent from our lives, Mother still managed to make herself felt. Then again, Mother's idea of success was marrying the richest man she could get her claws on… regardless of their eligibility.

Daddy wasn't thrilled either, but at least he tolerated my dreams. He knew how much music meant to me. He even pulled some strings with his connections as the Dean of Graduate Studies in Columbia to get me my first audition. Not without making a point that what happened after that first audition would depend entirely up to me.

All that all changed after Teddy introduced me to Nate. I quickly realized how quickly priorities and one's outlook in life change when one factors in the affairs of the heart. It was very difficult, choosing between my two loves. In the end, I chose Nate.

Before Reed came along, I continued my love affair with music by volunteering my talents for various charity fundraising functions. I ended up giving some of our friends' children some tips and pointers with music and voice lessons. Our informal sessions somehow evolved into formal lessons once a week.

Maryanne Waecther was one of my first pupils. Unlike her mother, she was very likeable. If you ignore the vast amount of empty space in between her ears, that is. It was probably because out of pity that I kept her. At the rate her mother was keeping her as a pampered ignorant little thing, she didn't really have much going for her except her looks. And her enthusiasm made up for what she lacked in talent.

Besides, Nate pushed me to take back students. To keep my mind occupied, he said. 'Occupied'. He thought it was unhealthy how my world started to revolve completely around Reed ever since our appointment with Jim Grieves. I could mention one or two things about certain people's reactions to our son's condition, but after years of knowing that it won't lead anywhere, I figured it'll be less complicated to hold my tongue.

I should have seen it coming, though. Reed sometimes showed rare attachments to objects and things. The piano was one of them. It had been a habit of mine to vent my frustrations on the piano. I had been spending so much time in the drawing room since Reed was born, we might as well live in that room.

As soon as the music started playing, Reed would listen intently. When he started to crawl, he took the habit of crawling to sit underneath the grand piano's massive belly as if to hear better the sound coming from it. Sometimes he would press his tiny hands against the piano's underside as if to absorb the sounds into his tiny body. Teddy once suggested that perhaps the vibrations soothed him.

The incident happened on the first day Maryanne came back for her lessons. Reed was already curled up in his blanket in his usual cranny underneath the piano. Maryanne was so amused by how adorable he looked that she insisted that we didn't disturb him before she proceeded to butcher Bizet with her usual enthusiastic fervour.

Halfway through the lesson and with an impending headache at hand, I was trying my best ignore the instinctive desire to reach out and break her neck as one normally feels when one hears the sound of a wounded animal begging to be put out of its misery. I was too busy thinking of the ways to get back at Nate for convincing me to endure this torture to notice. Without warning, Reed suddenly emerged from underneath the piano and attacked the keys… rather rudely, I must add. Maryanne was horrified (and perhaps frightened) by Reed's unusual behaviour that she left right away.

I probably would have been mortified with embarrassment if I wasn't so grateful (I even wished I had the courage to do it myself). But it was actually something else that stopped me on my tracks. It was the recognition that the keys Reed was attacking fervently were the notes Maryanne kept missing.

"Maybe Reed's an idiot savant. I read about this in a magazine somewhere… about some of these kids who have amazing memories for music and arithmetic."

Bless Teddy for his insights. His idea opened a new door for my son that I even forgave him for referring to my son as an idiot.

It took a while to test his hunch since Reed wasn't keen on cooperating. There was also just so much his tiny little fingers could manage. But once Reed caught on with the game, I was absolutely astonished to discover how easy it was for him to recall an entire symphony even after hearing it once. Later on when his coordination improved, I would discover that he didn't just recall the overall melody, but he was able to recall and play every note from every instrument with perfect accuracy.

Our little exercises in front of the piano soon became our regular routine. Eventually, Reed understood the connection between sound and the music symbols written on paper. By the time Reed was four, we were playing complicated duets together, the limitations of his tiny hands permitting of course. My only regret was that the musician in me recognized that while Reed was able to recreate any piece of music he heard or follow the music sheet instruction to perfection, Reed lacked the musical affinity to create his own music. The sounds coaxed by my son's hand was perfect in every aspect of technique, yet maintained a mechanical quality. Again, my silently fears that the condition of his illness might have effectively locked him from reaching his full potential resurfaced. Despite what he can do, it seemed that my son was destined to be nothing more than a glorified parrot.

I told Nate about this once. He laughed as usual and tried to reassure me. But I saw that what I said bothered him. He started to make an effort to be more involved with caring for Reed. But Reed's lack of response to his efforts only frustrated Nate. He couldn't comprehend why Reed would follow my lead and not pay attention to him.

A normal child would feel more attachment to the parent who spends more time with him, for Reed, it took at least five more times that same parent's effort to form a semblance of an attachment. It was only natural that Reed would still consider Nate a stranger since he barely saw his father more than an hour or two a day if ever at all. Not that it was Nate's fault. With Dad, semi-retired for health reasons, Nate had to work twice as hard to make sure he was going to be able to fill his father's shoes the day Dad completely leaves the business in his capable hands.

I personally thought he really needed to slow down. Nate and I have been trying to convince him to sell the old house and move back in the main house with us, but Dad was just as stubborn as his son. But Dad compromised for the moment by spending the weekends with us at least, to spend more time with his grandson.

Teddy and Dad discovered, completely by accident that Reed's astonishing memory was not exclusively an aptitude for music during one particularly heated chess game between them. Dad had taken the habit of letting Reed sit on his knee to watch, and even managed to teach my son to put the pieces on the chessboard before and in between games, which Reed diligently did as soon as a game was over.

That day, the chessboard was somehow accidentally swept off the table (which Teddy claimed that his father did on purpose) ruining Teddy's impending win. Like clockwork, Reed proceeded to replace the pieces on the board as usual, and to the older Richards men's astonishment, continued on to recreate the game play by play until the moment just before the board tumbled.

I remembered Teddy yelling excitedly for me to come quickly. I rushed to the room, thinking something terrible has happened only to see the two older Richards men grinning elatedly at their new discovery. It seemed that after playing with the chess pieces, the two attempted to teach my son the basics of poker. While they couldn't play a proper game, they discovered on the way that Reed seemed to be able to predict the number of times certain cards appeared in the hand with fairly good accuracy.

"**Do you know what this means? It's like he's counting the probabilities in his head in lightning speed! When Nate finds out, he'll have a… whatever it is that squares like him have that's equivalent to an orga--." **

"**THEODORE RICHARDS! DON'T YOU DARE IN FRONT OF MY CHILD!"**

After all this time, as my father-in-law and brother-in-law that afternoon shared a round of laughter and genuine pride as we watched my son, it felt as if something heavy and painful was lifted off my chest. Reed was completely oblivious of course. He had wandered from his grandfather towards me and clung to the hem of my sleeve expectantly. Even if he understood, he was too young to understand the significance of what he's been doing and what he really was.

Then again I don't think any of us really understood the significance of the tiny slivers of himself that Reed allowed us to see. All we really knew was that the hope for Reed's future has become significantly become less grim as what all the doctors and experts and society in general had painted it to be.

"**Evie, I think Reed is going to grow up to become someone really fantastic."**

End of Chapter 2

* * *

Author's squawk: 

Some interesting footnotes:

**1**** Dr. Bruno Bettleheim **brought Dr. Leo Kanner "Refrigerator Mother" (1943) hypothesis into widespread popularity through his papers written in the 1950's and 1960's. That is, it was Mom's fault, for being a neglectful bitch that autistic children are unable to socialize or interact with the world. Dr. Bernard Rimland, a psychologist who also had an autistic son, would challenge Bettleheim's theories and his book, _Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, __would be instrumental in transforming autism to the current views we have towards the disorder. _

Prior to the 60's most autistic children are diagnosed with "childhood schizophrenia", were promptly heavily medicated and sent to live the rest of their natural lives living in seclusion within the walls of various institutions that catered for "disturbed children". Thankfully, "childhood schizophrenia" was abolished from the DSM in the 80's.

On a non-related note… Mark Millar is taking over the FF starting February 2008! Yikes! Scary and exciting at the same time. I liked what he did with Ultimate Fantastic Four but I had mixed feelings with Civil War. And for Millar's debut, he is bringing a "new" character into the story. Someone that will shed an interesting light re: Reed's past.

**AN EX-GIRLFRIEND!**

_**Dun-dun-dun….!**_

Who will put a strain on the Richards marriage!

**_DUN-DUN-DUUUUUN!!!!_**

_Le sigh_ I dunno how to react to that. Then again, the F4 has been a soap opera as much as an adventure comic. Claremont flirted with that idea using Alyssa Moy (though he kept Reed and Alyssa's relationship vague). It wasn't until the _**Reed Richards Before the Fantastic Four**_ comic that Reed admitted that he and Alyssa dated (and with them behaving like Bruce Willis and Sybil Sheppard from Moonlighting, they seemed more like a likely couple than Reed and Sue). Waid resurrected Alyssa in one bit story for his run to reveal that Reed and Alyssa's relationship was more than just casual dating. It was serious to the point that Reed actually asked Alyssa to marry him!

But who will this new ex be, I wonder? I really liked the concept that Millar is throwing… about Ben being smarter than he lets up to be, and Reed being more athletic and charming than his absent-minded professor persona shows us. But introducing a new character always makes me nervous. And apparently, this ex-girlfriend is actually a teacher or something like that. (Was he Reed's teacher? Somehow, I can see a young Reed being manipulated by an older woman as a young lad. He was only fourteen when he started college, after all.) Is she being introduced as the kids' teacher? Ouch! Now that is just really wrong!

Millar just described her as an unlikely person that Reed would fall for (that's why it was a shock!). Eventhough Reed and Sue obviously loves each other, this new character's arrival is going to shake the house to the point that it will strain Reed and Sue's already very strained marriage.

One part of me says… hmmm. It's about time Reed gets to be on the other side! Reed has been amazingly tolerant of Namor and has pretty much accepted that Sue will always have an attraction to him. In the Crucible storyline, when Sue's innermost desire manifested as Sue being "Queen of Atlantis", Reed became his usual emotionally constipated self after getting over the shock. It will be interesting how Sue reacts… Sue's reaction to Alyssa's initial intro was just as stagnant (Then again, this could be just Claremont's writing). Now, her reaction to Alyssa in the Waid run was hilarious! It's so rare to see a jealous Sue. I'd like to see her reaction to this new character. But at the same time… Sue and Reed (while they had their ups, downs, separations, and almost divorces) are like the foundation of "marriage" in the Marvel Universe. Destroying 40-odd-years of true love and marriage over an old flame is going to be devastating.

Ja!  
Ina-chan


	3. In which more barriers are broken

DISCLAIMER: F4 and all its characters belong to Marvel. No money is made from this. This is done all for the greater glory of Reedness!

January 2, 2008

**Perfectly Normal  
**_**Chapter Three: In which more barriers are broken  
**_By Ina-chan

"**It's not the strongest and the fittest who survive. It's the one who is most willing to change."**

Nate said that all the time. And it was reflected on both his work and himself. While Nate was a certified scientific genius of his own right, his true genius wasn't how he created or thought things to revolutionize the world. His true genius was his amazing ability to adapt everything around him into his advantage. Within the span of twenty odd years since he started apprenticing under his father's wing as a teen-ager, he transformed a successful family business into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

And now… seeing Reed slowly overcome all the stumbling blocks put before him both by biology and society… I've come to understand that my boy at age five was truly his father's son complete with all the Richards quirks on top of his own.

His rich chocolate hair waved and curled at the ends like his grandfather's, his uncle's and his father's. Mother's bias aside, I felt rather proud of my son's hair. It seemed a shame that it wasn't going to last, based on the older Richards' track record.

Like a summer flower, the shade only lasted in a Richards' early youth. (Though Teddy always joked that he would always prefer to go grey over bald.) Dad's hair started to turn grey when he was fifteen and would have been completely silver had it not been for the miracle called Clairol before he was forty. When I first met Nate when he was twenty, shades of grey already graced his temples, giving me the embarrassing first impression that he was Teddy's father (stupidly thinking that commenting on his youthful complexion despite his age would be flattering compliment).

Not that it was entirely my fault, I wasn't aware of this family quirk. Teddy never showed me any pictures of his family and Teddy dyed his hair every shade of the rainbow (sometimes at the same time) in a bi-weekly schedule during our youth before he allowing his natural salt-and-cinnamon shade to grow back after his first non-fiction bestseller (too much trouble than its worth to tint it, he claimed).

What I loved about the Richards hair was how its pretty shade perfectly complimented their eyes. By the time Reed was two, it was obvious that his baby blues was temporary. Like the rest of the Richards men, Reed had these beautiful warm whiskey brown eyes that changed color, given the right angle of light, into the illusion that it was liquid gold.

Like most autistic children, Reed had difficulty with meeting people's eyes. It was a strange phenomenon that no one could really explain. But unlike some of the autistic children I've met who would continue to stare at the floor, Reed would shyly peek from the corners of his eyes. Once in a while, he would even try to hold your gaze for a few seconds. That was how we communicated, mostly. I suppose after spending almost every single moment of his life with me, it was a matter of time before we developed some form of almost telepathic bond. Little gestures and sometimes even just on how he looks at me, that was enough for me to know what he wanted to say.

On the other times I couldn't understand, Reed would simply draw or write down what he had in mind. We used to have one of those tiny little chalkboards at first until the chalk dust getting into everything got too annoying. So I ended up adopting one of Nate's habits… carrying a little notebook and pencil in my pockets at all times. Later on, Reed wanted one for himself. He even wanted specifically the same pocket notebook as his daddy's.

That was one accomplishment I was very proud of...Reed learning to read and write well ahead of normal children his age. I always believed and hoped that what Jim Grieves and what Ed said about the future of Reed's cognitive development was wrong. With each accomplishment, it made my hope stronger. I suppose I'm biased to believe that my son is special. But when Reed quickly learned to read and write with alarming comprehension when he was barely five years old on top of his remarkable memory and all the other amazing things he was able to do, it was very hard to ignore the fact that Reed was not just special in a mother's point of view.

Reed was gifted.

"**We always knew that Nate was very special. His brain was wired differently from the general population or something." **

Teddy used to tell me fond anecdotes about his little brother and all the amazing things he does. How he was able to learn things faster, remember things like its imbedded in his memory, do maths in his head quicker than an adding machine, and has these fantastic ideas about how make machines work more efficiently and effectively. He was already doing high school level schoolwork before he was six years old. A couple of scientists even want to study how his brain worked, until their mother had enough and didn't want one of her babies to be seen as some kind of freak show.

I suppose the whole embarrassment on how Nate and I first met was entirely Teddy's fault. Based on how Teddy used to describe his 'adorable baby brother' resulted in the image of Nate in my head as a version of a precocious seven-year-old Mozart banging away beautiful symphonies on the harpsichord with his tiny little fingers. I didn't understand until now. Perhaps that was the reason why the Dad and Teddy were so calm about Reed's diagnosis all that time. While Nate had his moments, he was overall very laid back about the whole situation as well. Perhaps they were merely watching history repeat itself. Perhaps, just like his father, Reed's brain was just wired differently from the rest of the general population. Maybe it was really just a matter of helping him find a way to express himself… or teaching him means so that we of the general population could understand him.

But unlike Nate, Reed had strange oddities in his behaviour that Ed attributed most likely to autism. Aside from feeling discomfort at being hugged, Reed clearly hated hearing loud high pitched piercing sounds. He used to make a fuss whenever the telephone rang, so I made it a point to make sure that the rooms that we frequented in the house didn't have one. Yet at the same time with great irony, Reed seemed to marvel at the sound of any 'loud music'. From Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to that Jimi Hendrix noise (until the guitar solos hit that unnerving pitch, that was)… he seemed equally entranced as he placed his hands over that damned stereophonic speaker that Nate modified for him (damn my husband's genius) so that Reed could feel the sound vibrating from it.

That was the strangest part of all. Jim Grieves said that the reason why autistic children behaved the way they did was because of what seemed to be some kind of heightened sensitivity to sound and touch. Simple sensations that we perceived as normal could actually be feel unpleasant. That high pitch could be in fact painful to hear and that simple hug could feel a lot more like smothering. Jim Grieves suggested to mute Reed's level of stimuli to make the environment tolerable.

"**Is it just me, or does it seem like Reed's wired on coffee?"**

I didn't really notice it until Teddy made that observation one afternoon. Nobody really knows what's going on in an autistic child's head. While there are classic symptoms (of which some Reed seemed to exhibit), Jim Grieves admitted that it's also different with every child.

I mean, I've observed that even though Reed seemed to have an aversion to being coddled and hugged, he didn't resist to gentle touch. In fact, he even seemed to like the sensation of my fingers drawing gentle small patterns on his palm or feeling my fingers caress his forehead and run through his hair. In one of those quiet moments, he'd even fall asleep and allow himself to fall into my gentle embrace.

But only to a certain extent… I also noticed that Reed seemed to withdraw more into "himself" the more we left him alone. He thrived more hearing me play and feeling the sounds vibrate from the underneath the piano's belly. And with those specific "pleasant" stimuli present, we noticed that Reed acted more alert and seemed more open to learning something new sometimes to the point of hyperactivity. And as Teddy accurately described it, it was as if the mentioned stimuli seemed to have an effect on Reed like what the first cup of coffee in the morning has on a normal adult.

Nate mentioned about how sensory deprivation was known to induce a state of consciousness that enables enhanced creativity, problem solving and super-learning. Not at all that different from how monks enter a meditative state to ponder on the meaning of life. With Reed's unique condition, perhaps certain types of stimulation could do the same effect.

So despite what the doctors and what society said, Reed continued to thrive in his own way. Teddy joked that Reed was the way it was because it was genetic. Between Nate's stubbornness and my "innate" drive to prove everybody wrong, it was Reed's nature to break through any barriers before him.

Though there were still a number of obstacles that Reed still needed to overcome. While he seemed to grow leaps and bounds regarding finding means to communicate with us, the invisible walls around him immediately springs up in the presence of strangers. In the past almost five years that my son has been alive, I have yet to see my baby smile or hear him laugh and talk.

That was until Reed's sixth birthday…

"**You care more about work than your own family!"**

I remembered it clearly as if it happened yesterday. How those horrible words finally managed to edge out of my consciousness and out my lips. It was a tense moment around the dining room table. I was furious. Teddy was usually the only one who could snap me out of rage, but he was... away. Dad was just as angry, but he kept his demeanour festive and cheerful. And Nate…

Nate acted as if he didn't do anything wrong.

And that what prompted the whole thing. My loving husband was late coming home for our son's birthday dinner, despite me reminding him pretty much every day for the past two weeks. If Dad didn't go to the office himself to get my idiot husband, Nate would have forgotten about it altogether.

I suppose I should have gotten used to it. That wasn't the only time that Nate put work a priority over us. Usually I understood. Or at least I tried to understand. I know that Nate's work was very important even more than ever.

There was also the ongoing matter with Teddy that he had to deal with. None of the Richards men would discuss it openly in front of me even though Nate and Teddy argued about it countless of times. They've all pretty much tried to ignore the pink elephant sitting in the corner of the room, but we all knew it was a matter of time. Now, avoidance was totally not an option now that Teddy's name made it to HUAC's list. And Teddy's lack of cooperation was not helping matters either. Nate was doing his best to help his brother and keep Richards Enterprises from going belly-up now that the entire nation seemed to have gone insane with the communism paranoia.

I know this was being selfish of me… but still! Couldn't he spare one evening with our son? Reed barely saw him as it was. Teddy once told me during one of his bouts of depression about his resentment with Dad not being there during the formative years of their lives. While Dad tried to make up for it, especially after Teddy ran away from home (and has made his presence in his grandson's life a major priority), it was obvious that Nate seemed bent on repeating the same pattern with his son. It didn't take long for the forced civility to break down. Not even Dad's diplomatic reasoning was able to stop the impending argument.

Just as Dad gathered Reed in his arms to take him out of the room, I came. It was a soft hoarse sound that probably would have gone unheard if Dad didn't yell at the both Nate and I to shut up. And with some of Dad's prodding, it came again…still soft but clearer.

"**Mommy reminded Daddy thirty-five times. Ten times today…"**

And as we all stared at my boy in shocked silence, Reed obliviously recalled each and every instance the past two weeks that he heard me nag his father about the dinner, acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Hearing my baby speak for the first time was more than enough to bring tears in my eyes. But the feeling I felt on hearing him talk for the first time… in complete sentences… without any of the usual baby words preliminaries… acting as if he was doing it all the time… there were no words to describe it. And based on the identical expressions on both Dad and Nate's faces, they probably felt the same way.

Needless to say, we knew right then and there that things were never going to be the same.

End of Chapter 3

* * *

**Author's squawk:**

According to Marvel, Reed was actually younger than he looked. By contrast the age difference between Reed and Sue shrank from 12 years to 7 years as time passed by. Current canon suggests that Reed and Ben are in their early/mid 40's, Sue and Alicia are in their early/mid 30's and Johnny was stated to be 27 in the Waid run (in the early 2000s).

Stan Lee's explanation for the greying temples was that his hair started to turn grey after the war. In the early FF comics, Reed joined the US Army as a military scientist in WW2 (but Reed's involvement on time specific wars are pretty loosely ignored because of future storyline issues). This was also the time when Reed started his working (and love-hate) relationship with Nick Fury. We don't know much about Nate's background, but we do know that Reed idolized his grandfather (just as much as he loved his Uncle Ted) and as a child, listened John's endless old War Vet stories (MK4 established that John was involved in WW2, effectively erasing Reed's WW2 history). It seemed to imply that Reed had a closer emotional relationship with his Grandfather and his Uncle than with his own father.

Going back to the greying hair… When Nate was first introduced, he looked like a strong strapping man in his 60's with a full shock of white hair… but flashbacks in MK4 (I really love that series) showed Nate with his Reed-esque temples when Reed was 5 or 6 years old. Grandpa John, the paratrooper, was the mirror image of Reed at age 20. All these implied that the greying temples were genetic.

Reed's eye color was actually more dependent on the artist. There were issues in the early FF comics (Byrne's run, I think) that gave Reed blue eyes. I suppose now that we have better digital printing technology, colors show up on paper much better than years before. And I really loved the art in MK4, which gave Reed these almost luminous gold-brown eyes that popped out of paper when they used certain lighting. I think a couple of issues used the same color in Ultimate FF's Reed too. And I just thought it looked awesome, especially on panels where Reed shows strong emotions or has his "thinking" expression on.

**Now some more interesting stuff on autism:**

Autism is NOT mental retardation despite what literature from the 60's assume. While autism and mental retardation can be present as co-morbid diagnosis in moderate and severe cases, just because you have autism as a diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean that you're automatically mentally retarded. Autistic people's level of intelligence varies the same way as people who don't suffer autism.

The only difference is that we normal people measure/see/demonstrate intelligence via communication… a skill that people with autism lack or have difficulty with. They have difficulty understanding figurative speech. So if you say "Bob is sitting on the fence with this decision", a normal person would interpret it as "Bob is still undecided" but to a person with autism, he'd think that "Bob is literally sitting on the fence". Sarcasm and jokes also fly over their heads and they often miss nonverbal social cues. So people with autism has the tendency to fixate on an interest and will drone on and on and on about it, not getting the nonverbal cues from others that what they're talking about is damn boring.

Thankfully, Reed has Ben and Johnny to remind Reed to shut up when he's talking too much… and let's not forget Reed's notorious sense of humor.

Ja!  
Ina-chan


	4. In which things fall apart

DISCLAIMER: F4 and all its characters belong to Marvel. No money is made from this. This is done all for the greater glory of Reedness!

12 November, 2008  
**Perfectly Normal  
**_**Chapter Four: In which things falls apart  
**_By Ina-chan

"**Never underestimate the insight of children. In most times, the simple manner of how they see things is the purest of truths."**

Daddy used to say that all the time. When Joe and I were little, he always held our opinion with high regard. It drove my Mother crazy how Daddy used to dote on us. She claimed that he only did it to turn us against her. When I met Teddy many years later at a children's benefit, he echoed the same sentiments. It seemed ironic that Teddy of all people would share the same perspective as my father. Then again, Teddy remained childlike in many ways. Perhaps that was the reason why we became fast friends.

To tell you the truth, I didn't really appreciate that sentiment until I had Reed. And I didn't really understand what it truly meant until Reed started talking. When Reed started talking, it was as if floodgates rusted shut opened all at once. It was as if he was trying to make up for the years he didn't speak. If you didn't set limits, he would indulge in a continuous running tangential commentary of every single thought that entered his head.

An ordinary person would find my son's new quirk an annoyance. But I was so grateful to be finally allowed to have a better glimpse of what goes on in my baby's mind that I didn't care. Though, I found myself once again, dumbfounded with amazement with his new milestone. We quickly discovered that we needed to watch what we say in front of him too.

Like with music and chess pieces positions, Reed remembered what he heard other people say with remarkable accuracy. Sometimes, he would quote them at the most inopportune moments. Reed's memory was like a tape recorder. He remembered every word of every conversation or every radio and television show he had actively listened to. He was able to recall and recite everything verbatim with proper prompting. Of course whether he understood half of what he heard or said was another story.

All too often, he would fall into these rambling lapses. Like how a comment involving something like let's say… monkeys, would be quickly followed by something that was almost like a compulsion for Reed to say everything he knew and read about monkeys, from monkeys in nursery rhymes to the different kinds of monkeys and to where monkeys were found. It was very easy to see how this could be problematic in social situations.

But as I mentioned before, at that point, I didn't care. It may have been selfish of me to think that way, but for a mother waiting six years to hear her baby's voice… this was heaven.

Of course, Nate being Nate, had his own ideas about the whole thing…

"**Cans clang the noisiest when they're empty."**

Yes, the ever so practical and philosophical Nate. I knew that he was as thrilled as I was to see our son reach every milestone despite the mountainous hurdles that he had to overcome. But Nate was always the scientist and the businessman. Yes, they were admirable and valuable traits that brought Nate to where he is now.

But sometimes, I wish…

Nate always valued substance over size and ends over the means. How he managed to keep a happy medium between these contradicting traits of his without losing his sanity, astonished, baffled, and frustrated me all at the same time. I gave up trying to figure out exactly what goes on in that brain of his a long time ago. It'll probably be easier to learn how to speak and read ancient Greek.

Like why he chose me, for example. I knew from experience that it was very easy for any woman with a heart to fall in love with Nate. But why he would fall for someone like me had always been a mystery.

I'm not being ungrateful or paranoid. When I first met him, Nathaniel Richards could have easily chosen any girl he wanted. And knowing Nate, he gets what he wants… most of the time, anyway. He was a handsome, wealthy, very eligible bachelor from a very well respected family. He was a son of a war hero, who bravely jumped from an airplane more than 20,000 feet off the ground straight into the gunfire of enemy lines in one of the bloodiest historic days in World War 2 France. And on to of that, Nathaniel Richards, even as a young man, was already a respected and certified scientific genius.

I, in the other hand, was an old hag on her way to spinsterhood, close to a decade his senior. I was the daughter of an unknown, mediocre University Dean who hated his job as equally as he was hated by his students, and married then divorced an alcoholic who made social climbing an art form. I had no accomplishments or pedigreed background to be proud of other than the stubborn ambition of clinging to impossible delusions of grandeur despite the reality of living as a poor unrecognized professional musician for the rest of her natural life, who by pure chance became fast friends with the funniest, wittiest, and most caring scatterbrain dreamer in the world.

After that embarrassing first impression, when I mistook Nate to be Teddy's father… I never thought I'd see Nathaniel Richards again. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted. But being friends with his older brother pretty much any means of avoiding him a complete impossibility. There was also the fact that Nate's unflagging persistence on pursuing even the hopelessly impossible. If his charm didn't win you over, his perseverance eventually wore you down. When I asked him what it was that he saw in me, he simply smiled and said something about empty noisy cans.

Of course, I saw Nate's point in Reed's case. Our boy clearly possessed exceptional gifts. His mind had the ability to absorb knowledge like a sponge. But with the way Reed was now, with his incessant compulsive tangential ramblings, it only showed how disorganized his thoughts were and his inability to coherently process what he learned. So to help stop Reed from simply parroting what he heard, I started the pattern of encouraging him to ask questions instead of just repeating what we said. It didn't take that long for my clever boy to get the hang of our new game.

Now Nate… I know Nate was trying his best amongst the circumstances happening around us. I do appreciate the fact that he started to make more of an effort to be present in Reed's life (even though Dad had to take him aside to have a long talk with him about it first). But Nate's idea of "father-son quality time"…

My husband's life mainly revolves around two places, the office and our home. In our home, where normal husbands would have a little carpentry workshop in the basement or the garage, my husband set up an entire wing of the mansion into what he called a "home office"… which really looked more like a mad scientist's laboratory.

And Nate's idea of spending quality time with his son was to take Reed with him to his personal lab, plop our son in a corner while he focused on his latest project.

It drove me crazy! I've been in Nate's home office and I personally didn't care that this was the birthplace of his genius' many wonderful creations. The place was full of things that were simply accidents waiting to happen. It was simply not a place for a little boy to be in. I resisted the idea of letting Reed wander in there unsupervised until Dad finally convinced me that my baby was no longer a restless toddler (not that Reed was a fidgety child in the first place) and that it was only fair to let Reed spend time in Nate's environment since I did have Reed all to myself pretty much his entire life.

Maybe Dad was right. It was just a matter of the mother hen in me, unwilling to let my baby chick out of my sight.

But those few moments when Reed wasn't around me made me realize a lot of things. Like the realization that I was probably more dependent on Reed than he was with me. And also the sick feeling coming from the pit of my stomach at the realization that after all these years…

I didn't really know Nate that much any more.

"**All the king's horses and all the kings men…"**

It all started with Teddy.

It was inevitable. It was probably the wrong decision to bank on the hope that the government would turn a blind eye on Teddy based on Nate's connections to the White House and the good relationship Richards Technologies had with the military. But there's no stopping Teddy from being himself. If he saw an injustice, he was the first to speak out, no matter the consequences.

So when HUAC summoned Teddy to appear in a hearing, he arrived in full battle gear and defiance. It was inevitable, Teddy was then sentenced for six months of prison for contempt.

Event though there were no clear charges accusing Teddy to communism… the fact that this happened was more than enough to cause the damage. Nate was forced to cut off all ties with his brother to pacify Richards Technologies' stakeholders and save the company. I'm sure it was a decision that Nate didn't want to make… but it wasn't that much of difficult decision either.

Nate and Teddy were already at odds for a good number of things as most siblings were throughout the years… not just regarding Teddy's political point of view…

…other things…

"**Do you know why they can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again?"**

It was natural for couples to start loosing that spark once they get comfortable with each other. I was witness and a living testament of that through my parents. Instead of trying to bring the spice back into their marriage, my mother turned to drinking. In return, my father turned to concentrating more with his work. In response to that, my mother started turning to other men.

That was one of my biggest fears. Seeing what happened to my parents happen to us. After almost ten years of marriage, Nate looked as handsome and dashing as the day we met. In comparison, the years have not been as kind to me. Considering that I've lived an eccentric recluse's life since Reed was born, compared to my peers who maintained their profile in high society, I'd be easily mistaken as the hired help to take care of Reed rather than Nathaniel Richards' wife. It didn't bother me before since Nate had always made it clear that he didn't care too much with appearances.

Or so I thought he didn't.

…at least until Jennifer Klukatch came in the picture.

This young bimbo who was a senior executive's daughter working her way through law school. She somehow managed to worm her way up to become Nate's "executive assistant".

Nate accused me of being completely paranoid. Maybe I was… but who could blame me? He was the one who was spending all his time at work and preferring to spend whatever free time he had locked up in that stupid lab of his instead of spending time with his family. There was also the fact that if his "beloved wife" was kept completely out of the dark from this arrangement and only found out about it when the so-called bimbo just happened to pick up his personal phone line.

His **PERSONAL** phone line!

But that was just the beginning. As the saying goes… when it rains, it pours. Sometimes it poured to the point that it felt as if the world stopped spinning.

"**Ice melts in glass but it doesn't unmelt…"**

It started with a phone call.

The voice on the other line tried to sound sympathetic. But I imagined that this being just one of the hundreds of phone calls delivering bad news an over-worked civil servant does per day… the bottom line was, they were more interested on getting the answer to their question.

But… I haven't seen my brother, Joey, since he was sixteen. I suppose… that was one of the reasons why I became instantly attached to Teddy after hearing his story. Like Teddy, my brother was not able to tolerate life with our father. Then again, what Joey thought of Daddy was one of the things I always blamed on Mother. She tried very hard to turn us against him… and Joey was too young to know better. Joey had always been Mommy's little boy.

Joey started running away from home when he was twelve. Someone (most of the time the police) usually brought him back. As a teenager, he got involved with the wrong crowd. So after his twentieth arrest and possibly his hundredth attempt to leave home when Joey was sixteen, Daddy threw his hands up in the air and allowed Mother to take full custody, against our better judgement.

And we all know what a great parent figure Mother was.

Joey got involved in a robbery in a convenience gone wrong and innocent bystanders got hurt. A four-year-old little girl died. It was an accident, he said. He wasn't the one who had the gun, but he was the one who got caught. I never doubted him. Joey lied about a lot of things, but I know my brother. He'll never lie about things like that.

But a little girl was dead, he had a rap sheet as long as football field, and somebody needed to pay. People were angry and nobody cared that he was a little kid himself. Joey was tried as an adult, sentenced like an adult, and imprisoned like an adult. His hatred towards my Dad extended to me, as he saw me as traitor. I tried to visit him once, and wrote to him once in a while. He didn't want to see me and he never wrote back.

As much as I hated it, we drifted apart and I never heard from him again.

Until years later… a few weeks ago… when a tired Civil servant managed to track down my brother's next of kin to inform me that my baby brother died peacefully in NYU Downtown hospital after a massive stroke. My little Joey, who at one time clung tightly to my arm because he was afraid to be left alone in the dark, died alone... and unknown.

And for the first time for the longest time, I had the strongest longing to go home.

Even though there was no one to go home to any more.

Since my marriage, Nate has protected me in his little comfortable and safe bubble that to my shame, I forgot about everyone else outside of it. While Joey was far from the most perfect role model for my little boy, it still wasn't fair that he died without knowing he was an uncle. And that he died without Reed knowing about him. Reed… all his life, he was protected in that bubble as well. Being the way he is, I knew that Reed would always find himself living within a bubble even if… no… when he manages to break through his disabilities.

It was time.

I needed to break free.

Reed needed to start seeing that the world was bigger than the mansion we lived in sunny Central City.

I needed to come home.

"**Are you coming back?"**

Dad's question sounded ominous. He probably knew. Well… he probably sensed it. He sensed what I really felt in my heart. If it weren't for Reed, I knew my answer right then and there. Somewhere along the way, Nate and I started to drift apart. If it weren't for Reed, Nate probably wouldn't have cared if I came back or not.

No… I wouldn't do that to my boy. My brother and I knew first hand what its like to grow up with a parent absent. I may have turned out okay in the outside, but I'm just as screwed up as my brother… and we both blame respective parents absent in our lives for letting us turn out this way. I couldn't do that to Reed.

Though at least for a short time, I could forget about Nate's infidelity, Teddy's legal problems and Joey… I just wanted to be happy and have a good time introducing the greatest city in the world to my son and finally introducing New York to the most fantastic little boy in the universe.

I admit, I was a little afraid at first. I didn't know how Reed would respond to this new environment… New York City's noises and action may be a little bit too much for a little boy like Reed. It took a little bit of prodding for Reed to come out of his shell… but my fears were baseless as Reed was quickly absorbed into the environment around him when he did. From beating a couple of vets to a quick round of chess during our afternoon walks at Central Park to attending as many concerts I could get a hold of tickets of and even to listening to Noah, one of my father's young protégés who became a family friend and was more than happy to play host to us in the evenings, ramble about his inventions and theories over the dinner table.

In many ways, this was the first time I've been truly happy for the longest time. I don't really know what spurred me to do what I did. It was an impulsive irresistible thought that prompted an action just as impulsive and just as irresistible. And though it was just a matter to picking up the phone and calling someone… anyone… to let them know what I've done… I didn't. I don't know why.

My little boy made his way to my bed a while ago… curled up and fell sleep in my arms. Something from the back of my mind whispered that I should get up and do something yet at the same time, the selfish feeling of doing that would destroy this perfect moment. No Nate, no Teddy, no Joey, no autism, no problems…

Just lying comfortably in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the familiar sounds of the city I love from the window of the Four seasons and my little boy's soft rhythmic breathing, watching the random snippets of my life flash before my eyes and feeling for the very first time in my life, numb with peace, content and feeling…

…perfectly normal…

The End

**

* * *

**

Author's squawk:

Wow. This chapter took forever to finish. I personally thought that this had way too much stuff crammed in compared to the other chapters… and waaaay too disjointed. It was a struggle editing what to keep and whatnot. But looking at it now, I realized, this entire fic is after all in the POV of Evelyn Richards as she… well, you probably figured out what was really happening based on how this ended, and if you read a companion chapter to this fic from "Invisible Red Thread".

Anwayz, it feels sad to finally say goodbye to Evelyn. I'm not really sure if I liked the character she ended up being in this fic. She's definitely not the same character that Reed idolized as a child. Ah well… here's to crossing fingers that Millar would actually touch her… (now that he has dipped his toes dealing with the whole Alyssa Moy thing.)

Ja!  
Ina-chan


End file.
